Audits
About a third of Link light rail riders don't pay a fare.
Version 1. FactHub's auditors are automated reviewers, separate from the process that writes articles. Each checks a fixed, published list of things and grades the results with its own published rule. They can be wrong; an audit is not a human expert review. All auditors
Across versions
| Version | First Look |
|---|---|
| Version 1 | 5/5 |
First Look
A: Passes the first look: nothing obviously wrong. Minor notes may be reported as feedback without lowering the grade.
- Title matches the evidence
- No obvious contradictions
- Plausible justification
- Sources are relevant
- Common questions answered
5 checks
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Pass Title matches the evidence
Title says about a third of Link riders don't pay. Evidence gives 39% of 2025 boardings with no fare record, and netting out about 6 points of youth leaves roughly 32-33%, which fits 'about a third'. Direction and scope match.
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Pass No obvious contradictions
Finding True, answer and conclusion agree. Share with fare media (56% in 2022-2023, 61% in 2024-2025) matches the 44% and 39% no-fare figures in key points and description. Farebox 16-17% counterfactual is stated consistently in conclusion, key points and evidence. No outright conflicts found.
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Pass Plausible justification
Conclusion explains the rating: Sound Transit's own count gives 39% with no record, youth net out to about a third, inspections are weighed as counter-evidence with stated limits, and the stronger 'most do not pay' version fails for every year. A reader can follow that.
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Pass Sources are relevant
Sources are Sound Transit fare reports, financial plan, fare-gate and engagement presentations, pilot page and policy briefing, plus Seattle Transit Blog, KUOW and KIRO 7 coverage. Each matches the fare-payment or farebox claim it supports by name, title and description. Judged on metadata only.
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Pass Common questions answered
Six objections are listed. Each response addresses its question: the 70% figure, the inspection gap, youth, fare-gate cost, equity, and the farebox-evasion link. None dodges its question.
Coverage: Read the article payload only: title, claim, finding, answer, conclusion, evidence, objections, sources and their metadata. Did not open source documents, snapshots or the web. Every takeaway is marked 'not yet checked', none is established, so no takeaway was relied on as verified; my passes rest on the article's internal consistency and on source descriptions and titles. I did spot-check the stated arithmetic: 14.6M of 37.9M is about 39%, 7.5% plus 7.8% is about 15%, $15-20M against $51M is about 30-40%, and 15-20 points subtracted from 2019 rates are consistent. The FactHub dataset has no URL and was not inspected. Sound Transit figures, including 2019 values and the 2025 inspection breakdown, are taken as stated in the article and takeaway quotes, not verified.